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Colorado school leaders act in unison to pressure lawmakers on funding

By Zahira TorresThe Denver Post

Posted:
03/17/2014 12:01:00 AM MDT

A first grader works with her highlighter at Alice Terry Elementary School on Oct. 2, 2012.

School superintendents across the state are employing a rare, unified message that has intensified the pressure on lawmakers to significantly bolster education funding this legislative session.

Superintendents from nearly all of the state's 178 districts, their school boards and other education groups are frustrated over increasing demands for education reform and dwindling state dollars. The groups are sending letters to parents and community members asking them to lean on their lawmakers to restore cuts to education, and they are paying weekly visits to the state Capitol asking for more money and local control.

Colorado Classroom covers local and state education issues affecting K-12 and higher education students in the state of Colorado.

"Politicians and special-interest groups have really started to shape the K-12 agenda, and absent from any conversations regarding that have been superintendents, the people who have been hired by locally elected boards of education to run school districts," said Cherry Creek Schools Superintendent Harry Bull. "You get to a point where you say, 'Wait a minute. We're the people who are charged with running these districts. That's our job, and we ought to at least have a say.' "

A revenue forecast to be released Tuesday will set the tone for the last weeks of negotiations with lawmakers over education funding in the state. Lawmakers are warning that the forecast may not be as rosy as initially expected. They argue that while the state is rebounding economically, it cannot fully restore education cuts made over the past five years.

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But superintendents and other education leaders, who have already scored a victory by getting lawmakers to include in a bill the restoration of $100 million in budget cuts, said they are not backing down.

"We found a common voice, and that common voice is far broader than school finance," Bull said. "It's just that the money issue, the school-finance issue this year, was something that we were better prepared to more quickly respond to. Rest assured that we are committed to continuing our work as a common voice in the interest of K-12 education."

She said lawmakers are trying to be responsive but have to consider the long-term sustainability of any additional education funding.

"Their point is that they've been in five years of budget-cutting. And my response is that it took us five years to get into this situation, it's going to take us a period of years to get out of this situation as the economy continues to recover," Hamner said.

Hamner is one of the authors of the Student Success Act, a bipartisan bill that would use improving revenue forecasts, an education-fund balance of $1 billion and about $40 million from recreational marijuana taxes to infuse more money into education. The bill includes funding for English-language learners and young children who are struggling readers, as well as money for the construction of charter school and kindergarten facilities.

Superintendents and other school leaders said the bill provides a good start but does not do enough to restore education cuts from what is known as the "negative factor," a work-around used by lawmakers to slice education funding despite constitutionally required increases.

"All of us would like to see an increase in funding beyond what's proposed in the bill," said Denver Public Schools Superintendent Tom Boasberg. "We recognize that there are financial limits and constraints and that there are other important parts of our government, but at the same time education has seen the most significant cuts. Our investment in education is critical to the future of our state."

Boasberg and other education leaders said they plan to push until the final hours of the legislative session for more money that is not tied to state-mandated projects or programs.

"The big issue with the Student Success Act is that so much of the new funds come with guardrails," said Bruce Caughey, executive director of the Colorado Association of School Executives. "It's for this program or that purpose, and it doesn't help the school district that needs to replace the coils on its refrigerator. It doesn't help the school district that needs to pay its transportation workers more because the oil companies in Weld County are hiring them away. It doesn't help those school districts that have buses with 400,000 miles on them."

Hamner said negotiations will continue on the bill. She and Rep. Carole Murray, R-Castle Rock, co-author of the bill, will propose several amendments Wednesday.

Hamner said the measure already exceeds the amount of funding proposed in Gov. John Hickenlooper's budget, which could mean cuts in other areas. If the bill passes, the average total that school districts would get per student would rise to $7,055, an amount that Hamner said boosts funding close to a pre-recession level.

"If you asked someone in the governor's office, they would say that they think we are maybe overcommitting a little too much," Hamner said.

The bill draws down the balance of the state's education fund from $1 billion to $100 million in the 2016-17 school year, Hamner said. Henry Sobanet, the governor's budget director, said the figure is below the $400 million ending balance that Hickenlooper's office prefers and could have implications on the rest of the state's budget.

"Right now, there are several hundred million dollars of ideas out there above our budget requests," Sobanet said. "We are all waiting on the March forecast, which will give us the last guidance to negotiate where all the bills need to go."

Eagle County Schools Superintendent Jason Glass said lawmakers should be recognized for listening to the concerns of education leaders over the past few weeks, but more needs to be done.

"Given the way that the state's economy is recovering and given that we see some legislators trying to carve off money for pet projects and special purposes, we're sort of not buying that there is no money there," Glass said.

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